This invention is related generally to an apparatus for remotely monitoring equipment via wireless communication, where the system may be internet enabled.
Remote sensor measurement systems are known. Obtaining measurement data from a sensor in such a measurement system typically involves an instrument connected to a sensor probe via wiring. The wire(s) typically transmit power and/or a trigger pulse from a measurement instrument to the sensor and a signal from the sensor back to the instrument. The instrument analyzes the signal to provide data for a measurement. Some instruments are capable of using multiple sensors all of which must be wired to the base instrument. Some of these instruments can present the data on a display, store it for later analysis, or communicate it to another computer.
One such remote sensor system measures the air gap at the top of a silo to provide an indication of the amount of material remaining in the silo. In this system, a plurality of sensors, in this case a plurality of air-coupled transducers, are fixed to the top of the silo. The transducer returns a measurement signal to a computer instrument, which uses the measurement signal to determine the air gap in the silo. Given the height and shape of the silo, the amount of material remaining within the silo can be determined.
The computer instrument is wired to the air-coupled transducers. Wires from the computer instrument carry power and a trigger pulse to each transducer. The computer instrument is then contacted periodically via a modem to retrieve values for the material levels in the silo.
It is costly to run wiring and conduit to the sensors using this approach. In addition, the data must be obtained as a string of values when the computer instrument is called. A central processing facility retrieving that data at a location remote from the computer instrument typically must convert this data to a readable format such as would be used in a web page display.